Mobile terminals are developed to provide wireless communication between users. As technology has advanced, mobile terminals now provide many additional features beyond simple telephone conversation. For example, mobile terminals are now able to provide additional functions such as an alarm, a Short Messaging Service (SMS), a Multimedia Message Service (MMS), E-mail, video conferencing, games, remote control of short range communication, an image capturing function using a mounted digital camera, a multimedia function for providing audio and video content, a scheduling function, and many more. With the plurality of features now provided, a mobile terminal has effectively become a necessity of daily life.
One such additional feature is the video conference or chat. On a variety of mobile and stationary devices Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) is used to provide browser-to-browser applications for voice calls, video chat, and peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing without the need of either internal or external plugins.
FIG. 1 illustrates a network environment for processing WebRTC based application according to the related art.
Referring to FIG. 1, a network environment including a first mobile terminal 101(a), a second mobile terminal 101(b), and a web server 105 communicating via a network 103 is illustrated.
When a user of the first mobile terminal 101(a) wishes to initiate a video chat via a browser application installed thereon with a second user of the second mobile device 101(b), the user of the first mobile terminal 101(a) must provide the video chat application of the browser a handle representing the second user of the second mobile terminal 101(b). For example, the handle may be the second user's email address, janedoe@abcdefgh123.com. The handle must be translated into an IP address via the web server 105. It will be understood that web server 105 does not necessarily know the IP address of the second mobile terminal 101(b), but the second mobile terminal 101(b) may provide the IP address during communication with the web server 105. Once the IP address of each of the first and second mobile terminals 101(a) and (b) is known to the other mobile terminal, P2P communications may commence.
The first mobile terminal 101(a) having captured the second user's handle, the first mobile terminal 101(a) transmits the handle of the second user to the web server 105 using a socket based signaling protocol. The first mobile terminal 101(a) may also transmit the first user's handle and the IP address of the first mobile terminal 101(a). WebRTC does not mandate a particular signaling protocol. However, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) and the like have been used. It will be understood that such signaling protocols are a separate and additional protocol from that of the P2P messaging of WebRTC.
The web server 105 receives the message from the first mobile terminal 101(a) via the control signal and translates the handle, transmits a requests to the second mobile terminal 101(b) and upon receiving acceptance for, for example, video chat the web server 105 provides the necessary information (i.e., corresponding IP address) to each of the first and second mobile terminals 101(a) and (b) upon which P2P communication via WebRTC may commence.
However, there are drawbacks to socket based control signaling used in creating and maintaining P2P communications of WebRTC. Particularly, socket based communications are known in the art to cause batteries of mobile devices to quickly drain. Further, movement between different network or access-points requires the mobile terminals negotiate via socket based control signaling with the web server 105 each time a change as made. As stated before, such socket based transmission of control signaling consumes battery power of the mobile terminal. Additionally, the receiving mobile terminal 101(b) must listen to a port for potential sockets requests thereby further draining battery power.
Accordingly, there is a need for an apparatus and method for providing improved signaling while reducing power consumption in a mobile terminal.